It’s progress.
A less jumpy Clover is a more relaxed Clover. Maybe tonight, she’ll actually get some restful sleep.
Eventually, people start drifting off. Chief claims the couch so he can “man the front door.” Roman heads out to do another perimeter check. Grant, Sterling, and Chase disappear into the other bedrooms, arguing about who gets which bed, while Clover and I sit side by side at the table.
Roman’s back in under three minutes, his face tight. “Motion sensors tripped on the east side. It’s most likely a deer, but Sterling and I will check it out.”
Clover’s body locks up beside me, so I pull her close. The minutes stretch like hours until Roman’s voice crackles through the radio beside me. “Clear. Just a doe and her fawn. But I’m doubling the sensor range.”
Clover exhales shakily.
I don’t. This time it was a deer. Who’s to say the next time won’t beher?
The radio falls silent, and then it’s just Clover and me. Despite everything that’s coming for us, this—here, with her—feels right.
“You should sleep,” I say.
“So should you.” Her gaze lands on the letters spread across the table, and her expression shutters. “You’re reading them.”
“Yeah,” I say, hating how quickly she can still retreat into herself.
“They were private.” Her voice is sharper than I’ve ever heard it. “I wrote them thinking no one would ever—that you would be the only one to read them. Not. Not—” She’s breathing hard. “It’s like someone is stealing my childhood all over again.”
“Oh, Honeybee.” The weight of all that she carries is crushing.
Her shoulders slump. “I wanted you to read them. I just…I never expected to feel so exposed by someone else reading my past as though they had a right to it. The invasion. The…pillaging of all my secrets. It’s—it’s too much. It’s our story, and it feels like she’s plagiarizing it and benefiting from our pain at every turn.”
She taps her fingers against the grain of the table, but it’s not a measured rhythm. This beat is new, uneven, frustrated. “What did you think of them? The letters.”
I draw her focus to me by covering her dancing fingers with my own. “I think you survived hell and came out on the other side still believing in love. I think every word I read makes me fall even more in love with you.”
Her light fills my heart when she registers what I’ve said.
“L-love?”
“Yes, Clover. Love.”
She smiles through a new wave of tears. “You’re only halfway through the letters though. You haven’t hit my angry era yet.”
“Your anger won’t scare me away. It’ll give me insight into our past that I wouldn’t otherwise have, and for that—as painful as it will be to read—I’m grateful.”
I’m also grateful when she falls into my chest and allows me to hold her.
“Come on,” I say, brushing her hair away from her face. “Let’s get you to bed.”
“Will you stay?” she asks. “Even if I can’t—even if my foot stays on the floor?”
“Always. I’m not going anywhere.”
She nods against my chest, and then I guide her to our room with a stack of letters under my arm.
Wrecks is already on the bed, having claimed his spot. He lifts his head, assesses the situation, and apparently decides I’m acceptable because he shifts to the bottom of the bed as if that’ll give us enough room.
I wait until Clover climbs into bed, then I pull her back to my front and wait for her breathing to even out.
It takes longer than I expect. She keeps startling awake, gasping, reaching for me to ensure I’m still here.
It’s heartbreaking.
